Beside You
by BonesBird
Summary: Jon is called to a Starfleet celebration, and needs to be reminded that there is always someone beside him, even when he's alone.


**Hello friends, I'm making a brief visit and posting a little oneshot here. It's been a couple months since I last posted (things have been super busy) but I'm going to work on migrating a few things here that I've previously posted on AO3. Also within the next week I'm hoping to start posting my drabbles. I've about 150,000 words of drabbles written for you lovely people, so I hope you'll enjoy them. Anyway. On with the oneshot.**

**Shin xx**

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Some days he felt the most alone he could ever be. It wouldn't matter if his crew were around him, or if he was surrounded by hundreds of people, he would still be alone. Not because he was literally alone, but because there wasn't anyone there who understood him. They all understood the surface. They understood the Captain. They understood the persona. Understanding Jonathan was harder, and was something very few people ever got to know. The ones who did were the people he could trust regardless of the situation.

He had screwed up so many of those friendships over the years. He had always tried his hardest to keep them going, but eventually they would fall away. There weren't many that had survived more than a few years. Some he had lost through circumstance, some he had lost through the sheer problems of being apart and unable to speak for so long. But one or two had stuck with him.

Trip was getting there. He knew Jonathan, he had seen the aftermath of the hardest parts of his job the last few years, and hadn't run away from those hard moments. But he still had barely scratch the surface. There was only one person he could always depend on, and she wasn't there, not right now. She had her own ship and crew to worry about.

So he'd close his eyes and imagine she was there with him, and sometimes that would work. Other times he would feel even worse than he had before. He would just miss her more. He would just wish for her to be there with him. It was hard enough being without her during the hard parts, he didn't need to make it worse.

He was still brooding in the crowded hall when a crewman came up to him, carrying a box roughly the same size as a shoebox. He just looked over everything, recognising the handwriting on the top of the box almost immediately. "Captain, I was told to give you this by Captain Hernandez."

"Thank you, crewman." He tried to smile as he accepted the box, fighting the urge to look through it straight away. He wanted to be in private as much as he could be in this instance. He wondered how long ago Erika had left this box for him. How had she known he might need a pick me up tonight? Did she really know him that well? Did he even really need to ask himself that question? Of course she did.

So he found a secluded corner of the reception hall and opened the box, it was full of pictures, and the occasional handwritten note, all clearly written in Erika's smooth and rounded handwriting.

_'When your tears are spent on your last pretense, and your tired eyes refused to close and sleep in your defence.'_ The first message read, with a picture from their last leave time. One he hadn't even been aware was being taken. They looked professional, like two captains talking, until you saw their facial expressions. Even in the picture he could read the love in Erika's face, and that automatically picked him up a little.

The second note was again a little message, and he wondered what she was writing _'When you try to speak but you make no sound, and the words you want are out of reach but they've never been so loud.'_ He smiled at that, almost certain it was a reference to his first speech not long after they first met, and he hadn't been able to say a single word. The attached picture confirmed his suspicion.

The next note he found read _'Coz I'm just trying to keep it together, 'cause I could do worse and you could do better.'_ He shook his head as he looked at the image that was on the back of. Their team, their friends, on a training mission when they were in their early thirties, all of them. The photos all reminding him of the good parts of his life, especially the ones she was involved in.

He continued through, until he got to the last note, and the picture that was attached to that reminded him exactly how much he loved her. _'And if your heart wears thin I will hold you up, and I will hide you when it gets too much, I'll be right beside you, nobody will break you.'_ With a picture of the two of them the last time they'd been together, stood beside one another her hand in his, just looking at each other as if there was nobody else around them.

As he read the last few words he heard them sung in his ear, and instantly knew who was standing behind him. He hadn't known she'd be here, and he certainly hadn't expected her to find him if she was. He wondered briefly how long she had been standing there watching him, not that it matter to him, he felt his strength flying back to him, and filling him again. Just from her presence.

Once, when he'd been young, he had been so sure that the movies were wrong about having a true love and them being able to magically make you feel better. While he knew from experience that this kind of love and relationship didn't happen magically, both he and Erika had had to work at it. However now he knew it was true, there could be that person who made you feel better with just a few words, with just their physical or even mental presence.

"What are you doing here?" He muttered after carefully putting the pictures back in the box and standing up, standing in front of her but keeping a slight distance, wanting to try and ensure that he knew that things were as he had expected them to be when he started here, when he had thought about what she had written.

"I thought you might need me, and _Columbia_ was recalled." She smiled, and he couldn't resist reaching out for her hand, needing to prove to himself that she was really there. That it was really her. She squeezed his hand and stepped closer, going up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek lightly. "I'm here for the week, so we'll have chance to catch up, when this circus is over."

"Thank you." He muttered, looking around everyone and throwing caution to the wind briefly and pulling her into his arms, wanting to hold her for just a moment. To show her that he was truly thankful for the love and support she always showed him. He thought over the words she had written, the words she had sung, and wondered where they had come from. He would have to ask her, then they had the chance.


End file.
